Im going to put it in on the side of my house so its not a mud pit anymore. Anyone used it and have any helpful pointers so i don't screw it up?

my company installs a lot of it every year. excavate 2-3" down, put down weed fabric, install the dg & rake it level, thats basically it. If you have a turfgrass nearby especially bermuda make sure you install some form of edging like metal edging to prevent it growing up through the dg. you will need to stay on top of the weeds that may germinate on top w/ roundup of some sort.

What sort of slope is along side the house?

Angle of repose for granite is similar to established sod. You might need to have a drainage layer under your granite, so it does not wander "downstream" after every rain.

Sometimes, a 2-3 course tall retaining wall is simpler (just remember to leave a lawnmower-width space either above or below the wall).

If you're spreading a large amount (I did 14 yards late last year), get one of the 36" wide aluminum landscaping rakes. Helps make things nice and level if you're anal about things like that. Also, initially I didn't compact, but after my dog wandered through it for a few weeks, there were enough ruts that started to collect debris that I went back and tamped it down a bit.

Edit for grammar.

[This message has been edited by Aggietaco (edited 1/10/2012 2:45p).]

capn-mac, there is no angle, its pretty flat and maybe 7 feet from the house to the neighbors fence.

Here the tricky part. Its a about a 2 foot drop down to the neighbors yard. The neighbor has had some remodeling done and there has been some erosion. What can i put along the that edge that will keep my DG from going into their yard. Since their remodel, id say that about 3 inches of dirt in some places has been lost from under the fence. Would edging metal do it? running it from wooden fence post to wooden fence post? cement edgers?

Ok, trying to picture this.

If I'm standing with my back flat to the wall of the house, there's no slope to my front, or from side to side?

I'm sort of guessing you mean it's flat over to the fence, then pitches down at (or under) the fence, yes?

If it's like this:
__________ |
\_|_ {fence}

Then, angle-of-repose is your enemy. Established grass sod will hold a 40º from the horizontal. "Chunky" DG will hold 40-45º; finer DG only runs 30-35º; as you exceed those values, rain will wash away anything you put in there.

Metal edging will work, for a short while. If you are really lucky, it will not "rotate" down into the drop off from erosion. Much.

If you use concrete edging, you'll have similar issues unless you "terrace" it up--and you'll need three horizontal courses for 2 feet.

Which kind of gets you to the inter-locking landscape blocks--they are 8" high, so you need three horizontal courses for 24"

Those landscape blocks will have some sticker shock, especially when compared to metal edging (which is not cheap). But, you can do the block in batches (and your back will likely prefer that, too).

________________________________________________________
Standing guard, even sitting behind a desk

Occupational hazard of my occupation just not being around

You've pretty much got the picture. The house is on a slowly sloping hill but the individual lots are fairly level

___________
...................\___________, ish.

So, right under my fence, it just falls down a couple of feet.

When the neighbors had some yard work remodeling done their new "beds" were not built up to the same level so some erosion is occurring right under the fence. The side of the house gets little to no sun so grass is not happening so i was thinking DG. With out having the neighbors totally redo their screw-up im just looking for a way (cheaply) to put down DG and not have it wash into their yard. The rest of the area is on less than 5 degree slope. its just that edge.


[This message has been edited by Kjodie (edited 1/12/2012 4:01p).]

Ok, so it's

H |
H |
H_________|
\
\______

In which case, I'd install metal edging. I'd shop around the landscape suppliers and see if any had the "double height" edging, too.
That's because regular edging will keep the DG up on your side, but, if there's a big break under the fence, that break will probably keep eroding until some other answer corrects it (meaning the neighbor is stuck with it).